


Remembered

by Cesare



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Abduction, Community: mcshep_match, Drabble Sequence, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-11
Updated: 2010-06-11
Packaged: 2017-10-14 16:29:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/151245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cesare/pseuds/Cesare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Interesting! It is unusual for an offworlder to perceive a difference after passing through the arch of the Ancestors. Perhaps you noticed," said Ettink, "that it has resolved the matter of your troublesome doctor."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remembered

One second the team was all together, the four of them in step as they passed into the capitol building; the next, there were only three of them. John looked around wildly. Teyla and Ronon reacted immediately, weapons held at the ready.

"Is something wrong, Colonel?" asked their Inyar guide, Ettink.

"I..." John faltered. "Something seems off."

"Interesting! It is unusual for an offworlder to perceive a difference after passing through the arch of the Ancestors. Perhaps you noticed," said Ettink, "that it has resolved the matter of your troublesome doctor."

"What matter? Which doctor?" John demanded.

"Exactly," Ettink smiled.

-

"Colonel Sheppard, if we may continue our tour?"

John just stared at the empty archway they'd passed through. "You don't mind if I take a look at this," he drawled, not asking; he placed his hand against the smooth metal.

So what do you do, John asked it, and the device resonated a reply: it altered individual perception of quantum probabilities to achieve a desired result.

What's your current desired result?

It was commanded to shift the team's memories to match an alternate universe in which no scientist accompanied them.

John frowned. There were no scientists on first contact teams.

-

There hadn't been since the earliest missions. The scientists had a bad habit of getting killed, and when they lost Dr. Zelenka, their foremost engineer of Ancient systems, John and Elizabeth agreed that the scientists were just too valuable-- and too hapless in the field-- to take on any mission that wasn't guaranteed secure.

If they'd had a scientist handy on some missions, John might still have all his original parts. But it just wasn't tenable.

Of course, John realized, that's what he would remember, if his memories were changed to match a universe without a scientist on the team.

-

Okay, John communicated with the quantum probability device. The last action you performed. Do you have an Undo function? He tried a mental Control-Z.

Probabilities reset, the device emanated back to him. Pass through again.

"Teyla, Ronon, we're going back this way," John ordered, and lead them through the arch.

And staggered, bowled over by the weight of all his restored memories. He turned to find his teammates looking almost as thrown.

"Where's McKay," Ronon recovered first, grabbing their guide by the collar.

"Who?" the guide bluffed; John and Teyla unholstered their P-90s and he changed his tune.

-

If this world had been a little more advanced, the team might have had some trouble recovering Rodney.

But the primary weapons used by the local guards were stun-swords, melee weapons that could transmit a shock like a taser. A few officers had pistols, but they were Genii standard issue, inaccurate and clumsy compared to the team's weapons.

Finally the guide brought them to a bunker. "Only our most high leader knows the command to open this door of the Ancestors. And our most high is guarded by hundreds. You will never get through."

John got out the C4.

-

They didn't blow a hole in the wall of the bunker, tempting as it was: too dangerous, when they didn't know Rodney's position inside. John gave a little demonstration showing what just a dab of C4 could do, exploding the fancy royal fountain.

Then John showed them how much the team had left.

Funny, their heavily guarded most high sent the command to open the door pretty quick after that.

Rodney wasn't hurt, just irate, so the team headed gatewards.

"So when they changed your memories to a universe without me," Rodney asked, "what was it like?"

Ronon said, "Quieter."

-

That night, though, John went to Rodney's quarters and told him everything.

"What," Rodney said churlishly, "come to rub it in that the city and the team could get along just fine without me?"

"I'd lost my spleen, a kidney, six inches of small intestine," John said. "I'd been on enzyme long enough that withdrawal burned out my thyroid. And I was ten years older. Wraith feeding."

"Son of a bitch," Rodney said, white with shock.

"All that, plus a lot more paranoid and miserable," said John. "It matters that you're here."

Even if John can never explain how much.


End file.
